The Night the Whole Town Tipped Back

The Sound My Leg Makes

There is a particular sound a prosthetic leg makes on old hardwood, and I have had two years to learn every version of it.

On carpet it is almost nothing, a soft compression, barely there. On the tile by the walk-in cooler it is a flat little slap. But on the hardwood out on the supper club floor, especially near the fryer where the boards have warped just enough to leave a gap, it is a click. Small. Mechanical. Not loud enough for most people to notice unless they are already looking for a reason to.

Maureen was already looking for a reason.

I want to tell this story from the beginning, because the version where it starts with a woman in a sequined cardigan insulting my leg is only half of it, and the half that matters most happened before I ever stepped foot in Kessler’s Supper Club as anything other than a regular waitress with two working legs and no idea what was coming.

My name is Holly. I am twenty-nine years old. I have lived in Birch Lake, Wisconsin my whole life, in the kind of town where the water tower has the high school mascot painted on it and everybody’s mail carrier also coaches Little League. I have worked at Kessler’s since I was twenty-three, first as a hostess, then behind the bar on slow nights, then full time on the floor once Stan trusted me with the Friday rush.

Fish fry Friday at Kessler’s is not a suggestion. It is close to a religious observance. Relish trays go out the second people sit down. The fryer runs from four in the afternoon until they turn the porch light off around ten. Old fashioneds get built with brandy, not whiskey, because this is Wisconsin and we do not apologize for it. Regulars have booths they consider theirs by some unwritten deed, and God help the tourist who sits in Chuck’s spot by the fireplace without knowing better.

I loved that job before the fire. I love it more now, for reasons that took me a long time to be able to say out loud.